Death And The Dancing Footman

Chapter VII Booby-Trap

With the return of Nicholas the house-party entered upon a new phase. From then onwards little attempt was made by anybody to pretend there was nothing wrong with Jonathan Royal’s week-end. Jonathan himself, after a half-hearted effort to treat the episode as a mere inconvenient delay, fluttered his hands, surveyed the apprehensive faces of his guests, and watched them break away into small groups. Nicholas muttered something about a bath and change and followed his mother upstairs. Dr. Hart and Madame Lisse, who had come out of the boudoir on the arrival of the outdoors’ party, returned to it; Mandrake and Chloris returned to the smoking-room. The others trailed upstairs to change.

Darkness came with no abatement of the storm. A belated pilot of the Coastal Command, who had flown off his map, battled over Cloudyfold through a driving misery of snow and, for a fraction of time, passed through the smoke from Jonathan’s chimneys. Peering down, he discerned the vague shapes of roofs and pictured the warmth and joviality of some cheerful week-end party. Just about cocktail-time, he thought — and was gone over the rim of Cloudyfold.

It was cocktail-time down at Highfold. Jonathan ordered the drinks to be served in the drawing-room. Mandrake joined him there. He was filled with a strange lassitude — the carry-over, he supposed, from half-drowning. His thoughts clouded and cleared alternately. He was glad of the cocktail Jonathan brought him,

“After all,” Jonathan said as they waited, “we’ve got to meet at dinner, so we may as well assemble here. What am I to do with them, Aubrey?”

“If you can prevent them from getting at each other’s throats, you will have worked wonders. Jonathan, I insist on your telling me. Who do you suppose tried to drown me, and who do you suppose they thought I was?”

“It’s an interesting point. I must confess, Aubrey, that I am now persuaded that an attack was made.”

“Thank you. If you had felt—”

“I know, I know. I agree that you could not have been mistaken. I also agree that whoever made the attempt believed it to be made upon someone other than yourself. Now, let us, perfectly cold-bloodedly, examine the possibilities. You wore a cloak, and for this reason might have been taken for Nicholas, for Hart, or for myself. If you were mistaken for Nicholas then we must suppose that the assailant was Hart, who resents his attentions to Madame Lisse and who threatened him, or William who resents his attentions to Miss Chloris, or possibly Miss Chloris herself, whose feelings for Nicholas—”

“Don’t be preposterous!”

“Eh? Ah well, I don’t press it. If you were mistaken for Hart, then, as far as motive goes, the assailant might have been Nick himself—”

“Nicholas knew Hart was indoors. He saw him looking out of the bedroom window.”

“He might have supposed Hart had hurried down by the shorter route.”

“But I swear Nicholas recognized me through the pavilion window, and over and above all that, he knew I had the cloak.”

“I agree that Nicholas is unlikely. I am examining motive only. Who else had motive, supposing you were thought to be Hart?”

“Madame Lisse?”

“There, we cannot tell. What are their relations? Could Madame have risen from her bed and picked her way down to the pavilion without being seen by anybody? And why, after all, should she do so? She, at least, could not have known anyone was going down singly or otherwise.”

“She might have seen me from her window.”

“In which case she would have realized that you were yourself, and not Hart. No, I think we may dismiss Madame as a suspect. There remains Sandra Compline.”

“Good God, why Mrs. Compline?”

Jonathan blinked and uttered an apologetic titter. “A little point which I could not expect you to appreciate. My housekeeper, the excellent Pouting, is a sworn crony of Sandra’s maid. It seems that when Hart first arrived in our part of the world, this maid, who was with Sandra at the time of the catastrophe in Vienna, thought she recognized him. She said nothing to her mistress, but she confided her news to Pouting. And I, in my turn, did a little gleaning. The Viennese surgeon was a Doktor Franz Hartz, I learnt, and I knew that Hart, when he changed his nationality also changed his name. The temptation was too great for me, Aubrey. I brought them together.”

“It was a poisonous thing to do.”

“You think so? Perhaps you are right. I am quite ashamed of myself,” said Jonathan, touching his spectacles.

“There’s one thing I’d rather like to hear from you, Jonathan. How did you find out my name was Stanley Footling?” Mandrake watched his host and saw him give a little inward start.

“My dear fellow!” Jonathan murmured.

“It’s only a point of curiosity. I should be amused to know.”

A pink flush mounted from Jonathan’s chin up into his bald pate. “I really forget. It was so long ago. In the early days of our delightful association. Somebody connected with your theatre. I quite forget.”

“Ah, yes,” said Mandrake. “And is Lady Hersey in the joke?”

“No. No, I assure you. Word of honour.”

“What about Nicholas Compline? He knows. You’ve told him.”

“Well, I–I—really Aubrey — I—”

“You put him up to saying what he did at dinner.”

“But without any intention of hurting you, Aubrey. I had no idea your secret—”

“You asked me the other night what sort of man I considered you to be. I didn’t know then, and I’m damned if I know now.”

The light flickered on Jonathan’s spectacles “In a sense,” he said, “you might call me an unqualified practitioner.”

“Of what?”

“The fashionable pursuit, my dear Aubrey. Psychology.”

Madame Lisse dressed early that evening, and got rid of the maid Mrs. Pouting had sent to help her. She sat by her fire listening intently. She heard a delicate sound as if someone tapped with his finger-nails at her door. She turned her head quickly but did not rise. The door opened and Nicholas Compline came in.

“Nicholas! Are you certain…?”

“Quite certain. He’s in his bath. I listened outside the door.”

He stooped swiftly and kissed her. “I had to see you,” he said.

“What has happened? He’s furious.”

“You needn’t tell me that. I suppose you realize that he tried to kill me this morning. They won’t listen to me. Elise, I can’t put up with this any longer. Why can’t we—”

“You know very well. I cannot risk it. A scandal would ruin me. He would make scenes. God knows what he would not do. You should have gone away.”

“Damn it, I did my best. Did you want me to do myself in? I tell you I couldn’t get away. I assure you I don’t enjoy the prospect of another attack.”

“Quiet! Are you mad, to make such a noise. What is the matter with you? You’ve had too much to drink.”

“I came in half-dead with cold,” he said. “Do you suppose he’ll have another go at me? Pleasant, isn’t it, waiting?”

She looked at him attentively.

“I cannot believe he would go to such lengths, and yet one can find no other explanation. You must be careful, Nicholas. Devote yourself again to the Wynne child. You deliberately baited Francis by your behaviour. I warned you. You should have refused the invitation; it was madness to come here.”

“I wanted to see you. God, Elise, you seem to forget that I love you.”

“I do not forget. But we must be careful.”

“Careful! Listen here. For the last time will you make a clean break? We could meet in London. You could write and—”

“I have told you, Nicholas. It is impossible. How could I continue my work? And when this war ends, my friend, what then? How should we live?”

“I could find something—” He broke off and looked fixedly at her. “You’re very mercenary, Elise, aren’t you?”

“All my life I have had to fight. I have known the sort of poverty that you have never dreamed of. I will not endure such poverty again, no, nor anything approaching it. Why can you not be content? I love you. I give you a great deal, do I not?”

He stooped down to her and behind them, on the firewall, their fire-shadows joined and moved only with the movement of the fire itself. From this embrace Nicholas was the first to draw back. His shadow started from hers and in the silence of the room his whisper sounded vehemently —

“What’s that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Ssh!”

He stepped back quickly towards a screen near her bed. It was the serio-comic movement of a surprised lover in some Restoration play, and it made a foolish figure of Nicholas. Madame Lisse looked at him and in response to his gesture moved to the door, where she stood listening, her eyes on Nicholas. After a moment she motioned him to stand farther aside and with a shamefaced look he slipped behind the screen. He heard that the door was opened and closed again and then her voice recalled him.

“There is nobody.”

“I swear I heard somebody at that door,” Nicholas whispered.

“There is nobody there. You had better go.”

He crossed to the door and paused, staring at her, half hang-dog, half glowering. Nicholas did not cut a brave figure at that moment but Madame Lisse joined her hands behind his neck and drew his face down to hers. There was an urgency, a certain rich possessiveness in her gesture.

“Be careful,” she whispered. “Do go, now.”

“At least you believe he means trouble. You know it’s he that’s at the back of this.”

“Yes.”

“I feel as if he’s behind every damn door in the place. It’s a filthy feeling.”

“You must go.”

He looked full in her face, and a moment later slipped through the door and was gone.

Madame Lisse seemed to hesitate for a moment and then she too went to the door. She opened it a very little and looked through the crack after Nicholas. Suddenly she flung the door wide open and screamed. Immediately afterwards came the sound of a thud, a thud so heavy that she felt its vibration and heard a little glass tree on her mantelpiece set up a faint tinkle. And a second later she heard the shocking sound of a man screaming. It was Nicholas.

Mandrake and Jonathan heard the thud. The drawing-room chandelier set up a little chime and immediately afterwards, muffled and far away, came the sound of a falsetto scream. With no more preface than a startled exclamation, Jonathan ran from the room. Mandrake, swinging his heavy boot, followed at a painful shamble. As he toiled up the stairs, the quick thump of his heart reminded him of his nocturnal prowl. He reached the guest-wing passage and saw, halfway down it, the assembled house-party, some in dressing-gowns, some in evening clothes. They were gathered in Nicholas’ doorway: William, Chloris, Dr. Hart, Madame Lisse, and Hersey Amblington. From inside the room came the sound of Mrs. Compline’s voice, agitated and emphatic, punctuated by little ejaculations from Jonathan and violent interjections from Nicholas himself. As he came to the doorway, Mandrake was dimly aware of some difference in the appearance of the passage. Without pausing to analyze this sensation he joined the group in the doorway. William, who was scarlet in the face, grabbed his arm. “By gum!” said William. “It’s true after all. Somebody’s after Nick, and by gum, they’ve nearly got him.”

“Bill, don’t!” cried Chloris, and Hersey said fiercely, “Shut up, William.”

“No, but isn’t it extraordinary, Mandrake? He didn’t want to come back, you know. He said—”

“What’s happened?”

“Look.”

William stepped aside and Mandrake saw into the room.

Nicholas sat in an armchair nursing his left arm. He was deadly pale and kept turning his head to look first at Jonathan and then at his mother, who knelt beside him. Between this group and the door, lying on its back on the carpet and leering blandly at the ceiling, was an obese brass figure, and when Mandrake saw it he knew what it was he had missed from the passage. It was the Buddha that had watched him from its niche when he stole downstairs in the night.

“… It all seemed to happen at once,” Nicholas was saying shakily. “I went to push open the door — it wasn’t quite shut — and it felt as if someone was resisting me on the other side. I gave it a harder shove and it opened so quickly that I sort of jumped back. I suppose that saved me because at the same time I felt a hell of a great thud on my arm, and Elise screamed.”

From down the passage Madame Lisse said: “I saw something fall from the door and I screamed out to him.”

“A booby-trap,” said William. “It was a booby-trap, Mandrake. Balanced on the top of the door. We used to do it with buckets of water when we were kids. It would have killed him, you know. Only of course its dead weight dragged on the door and when it overbalanced the door shot open. That’s what made him jump back.”

“His arm’s broken,” said Mrs. Compline. “Darling, your arm’s broken.”

“I don’t think so. It was a glancing blow. It’s damn’ sore, but by God it might have been my head. Well, Jonathan, what have you to say? Was I right to try and clear out?” Nicholas raised his uninjured arm and pointed to the crowded doorway. “One of them’s saying to himself, ‘Third time, lucky.’ Do you realize that, Jonathan?”

Jonathan said something that sounded like “God forbid.” Mrs. Compline began again —

“Let me look at your arm, darling. Nicky, my dear, let me see it.”

“I can’t move it. Look out, Mother, that hurts.”

“Perhaps you would like me—” Dr. Hart came through the door and advanced upon Nicholas.

“No, thank you, Hart,” said Nicholas. “You’ve done enough. Keep off.”

Dr. Hart stopped short, and then, as though growing slowly conscious of the silence that had fallen upon his fellow guests, he turned and looked from one face to another. When he spoke it was so softly that only a certain increase in foreign inflexions, in the level stressing of his words, gave any hint of his agitation.

“This has become too much,” he said. “Is it not enough that I should be insulted, that Mr. Compline should insult me, I say, from the time that I have arrived in this house? Is that not enough to bear without this last, this fantastic accusation? I know well what you have been saying against me. You have whispered among yourselves that it was I who attacked Mr. Mandrake, thinking he was Compline, I who, goaded by open enmity as well as by secret antagonism, have plotted to injure, to murder Compline. I tell you now that I am not guilty of these outrages. If, as Compline suggests, anything further is attempted against him, it will not be by my agency. That I am his enemy I do not deny, but I tell him now that somewhere amongst us he has another and a more deadly enemy. Let him remember this.” He glanced at Nicholas’ injured arm. Nicholas made a quick movement. “I do not think your arm is fractured,” said Dr. Hart. “You had better let someone look at it. If the skin is broken it will need a dressing, and perhaps a sling. Mrs. Compline will be able to attend to it, I think.” He walked out of the room.

Mrs. Compline drew back the sleeve of Nicholas’ dressing-gown. His forearm was swollen and discoloured. A sort of blind gash ran laterally across its upper surface. He turned his hand from side to side, wincing at the pain. “Well,” said William, “it seems he’s right about that, Nick. It can’t be broken.”

“It’s bloody sore, Bill,” said Nicholas, and Mandrake was astounded to see an almost friendly glance pass between these extraordinary brothers. William came forward and stooped down, looking at the arm. “We could do with a first-aid kit,” he said, and Jonathan bustled away muttering that Mrs. Pouting was fully equipped.

“It’s Hart all right,” said William. He turned to contemplate Madame Lisse, who still waited with Chloris and Mandrake in the passage. “Yes,” William repeated with an air of thoughtfulness, “it’s Hart. I think he’s probably mad, you know.”

“William,” said his mother, “what are you saying? You have been keeping something from me, both of you. What do you know about this man?”

“It doesn’t matter, Mother,” said Nicholas impatiently.

“It does matter. I will know. What have you found out about him?”

“Sandra,” cried Hersey Amblington, “don’t. It’s not that. Don’t Sandra.”

“Nicky, my dear! You know! You’ve guessed.” Mrs. Compline’s eyes seemed to Mandrake to be living fires in her dead face. She, like Nicholas, looked at Madame Lisse. “I see,” she said. “You know too. You’ve told my son. Then it is true.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mother,” said Nicholas querulously.

“Nor I,” said Madame Lisse, and her voice was shriller than Mandrake could have imagined it. “This is ridiculous. I have said nothing.”

“Hersey,” said Mrs. Compline, “do you see what has happened?” She put her arms round Nicholas’ neck and her hand, with agonized possessiveness, caressed his shoulder. “Nicky has found out and threatened to expose him. He has tried to kill Nicholas.”

“Look here,” William demanded, “what is all this?”

“It’s a complete and miserable muddle,” said Hersey sharply, “and it’s certainly not for publication. Mr. Mandrake, do you mind…?”

Mandrake muttered “Of course,” turned away and shut the door, leaving himself, Chloris Wynne, and Madame Lisse alone in the passage.

“This woman is evidently insane,” said Madame Lisse. “What mystery is this she is making? What am I supposed to have told Nicholas Compline?”

Mandrake, conscious of a violent and illogical distaste for Madame Lisse, said loudly: “Mrs. Compline thinks you have told her son that Dr. Hart is the surgeon who operated on her face.”

He heard Chloris catch her breath, and whisper: “No, no, it’s impossible. It’s too fantastic.” He heard his own voice trying to explain that Jonathan was responsible. He was conscious, in himself, of a sort of affinity with Mrs. Compline, an affinity born of disfigurement. He wanted to explain to Chloris that there was nothing in the world as bad as a hideous deformity. Through this confusion of emotions and thoughts, he was aware of Madame Lisse watching him very closely, of the closed door at his back, of the murmur of Mrs. Compline’s voice beyond it in Nicholas’ room where, Mandrake supposed, her sons listened to the story of Dr. Franz Hartz of Vienna. The truth is, Mandrake was suffering from a crisis of nerves. His experience of the morning, his confession to Chloris, the sense of impending disaster that, like some grotesque in a dream, half comic, half menacing, seemed to advance upon Nicholas — all these circumstances had scraped at his nerves and wrought upon his imagination. When Jonathan came hurrying along the passage with a first-aid outfit in his hands, Mandrake saw him as a shifty fellow as cold-blooded as a carp. When Madame Lisse began to protest that she knew nothing of Dr. Hart’s past, that Mrs. Compline was insane, that she herself could endure no longer to be shut up at Highfold, Mandrake was conscious only of a sort of wonder that this cool woman should suddenly become agitated. He felt Chloris take him by the elbow and heard her say: “Let’s go downstairs.” He was steadied by her touch and eager to obey it. Before they moved away, the door opened and William came stumbling out, followed by Jonathan.

“Wait a bit, Bill,” Jonathan cried. “Wait a bit.”

“The bloody swine,” William said. “Oh God, the bloody swine.” He went blindly past them and they heard him run downstairs. Jonathan remained in the doorway. Behind him, Mandrake saw Hersey Amblington with her arms about Mrs. Compline, who was sobbing. Nicholas, very pale, stood, looking on.

“It’s most unfortunate,” Jonathan said. He shut the door delicately. “Poor Sandra has convinced William that there has been a conspiracy against her. That Hart has made a story of the catastrophe for Madame Lisse, that — Oh, you’re there, Madame. Forgive me, I hadn’t noticed. It’s all too distressing, Aubrey. Now William’s in a frightful tantrum and won’t listen to reason. Nicholas assures us he knew nothing of the past but he might as well speak to the wind. We’re in the very devil of a mess, it’s snowing harder than ever, and what in Heaven’s name am I to do?”

A loud and ominous booming sound welled up through the house. Caper, finding no one to whom he could announce dinner, had fallen upon an enormous gong and beaten it. Jonathan uttered a mad little giggle.

“Well,” he said, “shall we dine?”

The memory of that night’s dinner party was to be a strange one for Mandrake. It was to have the intermittent vividness and the unreality of a dream. Certain incidents he would never forget, others were lost the next day. At times his faculty of observation seemed abnormally acute and he observed, exactly, inflexions of voices, precise choice of words, details, of posture. At other times he was lost in a sensation of anxiety, an intolerable anticipation of calamity, and at these moments he was blind and deaf to his surroundings.

Only six of the party appeared for dinner. Madame Lisse, Mrs. Compline, and Dr. Hart had all excused themselves. Dr. Hart was understood to be in the “boudoir,” where he had gone after his speech in his own defence and where, apparently at Jonathan’s suggestion, he was to remain, during his waking hours, for the rest of his stay at Highfold. Mandrake wondered what Jonathan had told the servants. The party at dinner was therefore composed of the less antagonistic elements. Even the broken engagement of William and Chloris seemed a minor dissonance, quite overshadowed by the growing uneasiness of the guests. Nicholas, Mandrake decided, was now in a state of barely suppressed nerves. His injured arm was not in a sling but evidently gave him a good deal of pain and he made a clumsy business of cutting up his food, finally allowing Hersey Amblington to help him. He had come down with Hersey, and something in their manner suggested that this arrangement was not accidental. “And really,” Mandrake thought, “it would be better not to leave Nicholas alone. Nothing can happen to him if somebody is always at his side.” Mandrake was now positive that it was Hart who had made the attacks upon Nicholas and himself and he found that the others shared this view and discussed it openly. His clearest recollection of the dinner party was to be of a moment when William, who had been silent until now, leant forward, his hands gripping the edge of the table, and said: “What’s the law about attempted murder?” Jonathan glanced nervously at the servants, and Mandrake saw Hersey Amblington nudge William. “Oh, damn,” William muttered, and was silent again. As soon as they were alone, he returned to the attack. He was extraordinarily inarticulate and blundered about from one accusation to another, returning always to the ruin of his mother’s beauty. “The man who did that would do anything,” seemed to be the burden of his song. “The Oedipus complex with a vengeance,” thought Mandrake, but he was still too bemused and shaken to crystallize his attention upon William, and listened through a haze of weary lassitude. It was useless for Nicholas to say that he had never heard the name of his mother’s plastic surgeon. “Hart must have thought you knew,” William said. “He thought that Mother had told you.”

“Rot, Bill,” said Nicholas. “You’re barking up the wrong tree. It’s because of Elise Lisse. The fellow’s off his head with jealousy.”

“I’m older than you,” William roared out with startling irrelevancy. “I remember what she was like. She was beautiful. I remember the day she came back. We went to the station to meet her. She had a veil on, a thick veil. And when I kissed her she didn’t lift it up and I felt her face through the veil and it was stiff.”

“Don’t, Bill,” Hersey said.

“You heard what she said — what Mother herself said. She said up there in your room: ‘Nicky’s found out. He’s afraid Nicky will expose him.’ God, I’ll expose him. He’s gone to earth, has he? I’m damn well going to lug him out and—”

“William!” Jonathan’s voice exploded sharply, and Mandrake roused himself to listen. “William, you will be good enough to pull yourself together. Whether you choose to do your mother an appalling wrong by reviving for public discussion a tragedy that is twenty years old, is your affair. I do not attempt to advise you. But this is my house and I am very much your senior. I must ask you to attend to me.”

He paused, but William said nothing, and, after a moment, Jonathan cleared his throat and touched his spectacles. Mandrake thought dimly: “Good Heavens, he’s going to make another of his speeches.”

“Until this evening,” Jonathan said, “I refused to believe that among my guests there could be one — ah — individual, who had planned, who still plans a murderous assault upon a fellow guest. I argued that the catastrophe at the swimming-pool was the result of a mischievous, rather than a malicious attack. I even imagined that it was possible poor Aubrey had been mistaken for myself.” Here Jonathan blinked behind his spectacles and the trace of a smirk appeared on his lips. He smoothed it away with his plump hand and went on very gravely. “This second attempt upon Nicholas has convinced me. If that idol, which I may say I have always rather disliked, had fallen, as without a shadow of doubt it was intended to fall, upon his head, it would have killed him. There is no doubt at all, my dear Nick, it would have killed you.”

“Thank you, Jonathan,” said Nicholas with a kind of sneer, “I think I realize that.”

“Well, now, you know,” Jonathan continued, “this sort of thing is pretty bad. It’s preposterous. It’s like some damn pinchbeck story-book.”

“Jo,” Hersey Amblington interjected suddenly, “you really can’t keep us all waiting while you grizzle about the aesthetic poverty of your own show. We’re all agreed it’s a rotten show, but at least it has the makings of a tragedy. What are you getting at? Do you think Dr. Hart’s out for Nick’s blood?”

“I am forced to come to that conclusion,” said Jonathan primly. “Who else are we to suspect? Not one of ourselves, surely. I am not breaking confidence, I hope, Nick, when I say that Hart has threatened you, and threatened you repeatedly.”

“We’ve heard all about that,” Hersey grunted.

“Ah — yes. So I supposed. Well, now, I am a devotee of crime fiction. I have even dabbled in quite solemn works on the detection of crime. I don’t pretend to the smallest degree of proficiency, but I have ventured to carry out a little investigation. Nicholas tells me that ten minutes before he so nearly became the victim of that atrocious booby-trap, he left his room and — ah — visited that of Madame Lisse.”

“Oh Lord!” Hersey muttered, and Mandrake thought he heard Chloris utter a small contemptuous sound.

“This was, of course, a reckless and foolish proceeding,” said Jonathan. “However, it has this merit — it frees Madame Lisse from any imputation of guilt. Because Nick, when he left his room, opened and shut the door with impunity, and was talking to Madame Lisse until he returned to sustain the injury to his arm. Nick tells me he heard the clock on the landing strike the half-hour as he walked down the passage to Madame’s room. I had glanced at the drawing-room clock not more than a minute before the crash and it was then twenty to eight. The two clocks are exactly synchronized. As the trap could not have been set until after Nick left his room, that gives us ten minutes for our field of enquiry. Now, at the time of the accident, Aubrey and I were both in the drawing-room. I found him there when I came down and actually heard him go downstairs some little time before that. I am therefore able to provide Aubrey with an alibi and I hope he will vouch for me. Now, can any of you do as much for each other?”

“I can for Sandra,” said Hersey, “and I imagine she can for me. I was in her room talking to her when Nick yelled, and I’m sure I’d been there longer than ten minutes. I remember quite well that when I passed Nick’s door it was half open and the light on. I saw him beyond the door in his room and called out something.”

“I remember that,” said Nicholas. “I left the room a very short time afterwards.”

“So there was no Buddha on the top of the door then,” said Jonathan. “I am persuaded that apart from Nick having gone out in safety, proving that the trap was laid later than this, we might rest assured that if the room light was on the trap had not been set. One would be almost certain to see the dark shape on the top of the door if the light was on. I have found out, by dint of cautious enquiries, that there were no servants upstairs at that time. It appears that those members of my staff who were not with Caper, in the dining-room, were listening to the wireless in the servants’ hall. Now you see, I have done quite well, haven’t I, with my amateur detection? Let me see. We have found alibis for Sandra, Hersey, Madame Lisse, Aubrey and, I hope, myself. What do you think, Aubrey?”

“Eh? Oh, I think it was more than ten minutes before the thud that you came downstairs,” Mandrake said.

“Well now, Miss Chloris,” said Jonathan, with a little bend in her direction. “What about you?”

“When it happened I was in my room. I’d had a bath and was dressing. I don’t think I can prove I didn’t go out of my room before that. But I didn’t leave it after I went upstairs except to go into the bathroom next door. When I heard the crash and Nicholas cried out, I put on my dressing-gown and ran into the passage.”

Mandrake was roused by a sharp sensation of panic. “What does that thing weigh?” he asked. “The Buddha thing?”

“It’s heavy,” said Jonathan. “It’s solid brass. About twenty pounds, I should say.”

“Do you think Miss Wynne could raise an object weighing twenty pounds above her head and balance it on the top of a door?”

“Nobody’s going to worry about whether she could or couldn’t,” said Nicholas impatiently. “She didn’t.”

“Quite so,” said Mandrake.

“Well,” said Chloris mildly, “that’s true enough.”

“Nobody’s asked me for my alibi,” said William. “I think it’s rather feeble, all this, because, I mean, we know that Hart did it.”

“But the point is—” Jonathan began.

“I was in the smoking-room,” said William ruthlessly, “listening to the wireless. I suddenly realized I was a bit late and started to go upstairs. I was just about up when Nick let out that screech. I heard you come down, Jonathan, about ten minutes earlier. You spoke to Caper in the hall about drinks at dinner and I heard you. But that proves nothing, of course. Oh, wait a bit, though. I could tell you what the news was. There’s been a reconnaissance flight over—”

“Oh, what the hell’s it matter?” said Nicholas. “What’s the good of talking like little detective fans? I’m sorry to be rude, but while you’re all trying to bail each other out, our charming beauty specialist is probably thinking up a new death trap on the third-time-lucky principle.”

“But to try anything else, when he knows perfectly well we suspect him!” Hersey exclaimed. “It’d be the action of a madman.”

“He is a madman,” said Nicholas.

“I say,” said William. “Has anybody done anything about that Buddha? I mean, it’s probably smothered in his finger-prints. If we’re going to give him in charge…”

“But are we going to give him in charge?” asked Hersey uneasily.

“I will,” said William. “If Nick doesn’t, I will.”

“I don’t think you can. It’s not your business.”

“Why not?” William demanded. Jonathan cut in hurriedly, asking William if he proposed to make his mother’s tragedy into front-page publicity. The conversation became fantastic. William showed a tendency to shout and Nicholas to sulk. Chloris turned upon Mandrake a face so eloquent of misery and alarm that he instantly took her hand and found more reality in the touch of her fingers, moving restlessly in his grasp, than in anything else that was happening. Jonathan began to explain that he had locked the Buddha away in his room. He reminded them of the nature of the trap. When Nicholas had returned to his room he had found the door not quite closed. The room was in darkness, as he had left it. He had pushed at the door with his left hand. The door had resisted him, and then given way suddenly. At the same instant his arm had been struck and Madame Lisse had screamed. He had cried out and stumbled into the room.

Nicholas irritably confirmed this description and cut in to say he had seen Dr. Hart go into the bathroom adjoining Nicholas’ room, and had heard him turn on the taps. “Of course he simply dodged out when he knew I had gone. He was spying on me, I suppose, through the crack of the door. His room’s only about fourteen feet away from mine on the opposite side of the passage.”

Mandrake, nervously tightening his grip on Chloris’ hand, thought with a sort of unreal precision of the guest wing. Mrs. Compline in the front corner room, then Madame Lisse, a cupboard, and Mandrake himself, all in a row, with a bathroom; then William; and then Hart in the corner room at the back, and another bathroom around the corner. Hersey Amblington in the converted nursery beyond. On the other side of the passage overlooking the central court round which the old Jacobean house was built, were Nicholas’ room, opposite William’s, and then a bathroom and an unoccupied room. Nicholas’ room was diagonally opposed to Hart’s. Hart could easily have spied on Nicholas, and Mandrake pictured him turning on the bath taps and then perhaps opening the door to return to his room for something and seeing Nicholas stealing down the passage towards Madame Lisse’s door. He pictured Hart as the traditional figure of the suspicious lover, his compact paunch curving above the girdle of his dressing-gown. “He clutched a sponge-bag to his breast, and his eye was glued to the crevice,” Mandrake decided. Perhaps he saw Nicholas tap discreetly at Madame Lisse’s door or scratch with his finger-nail. Perhaps Nicholas slipped in without ceremony. And then, what? Mandrake wondered. A quick sprint down the passage to the niche? A lopsided shuffle back to Nicholas’ room? Did Dr. Hart carry the Buddha under the folds of his dressing-gown? Did he turn on the light in Nicholas’ room and climb on the chair? Was his somewhat unremarkable face distorted with fury as he performed these curious exercises? No. Try as he might, Mandrake could not picture Hart and the Buddha without investing the whole affair with an improper air of opéra bouffe. He was roused from his reverie by Chloris’ withdrawing her hand and by William’s saying in a loud voice: “You know, this is exactly like a thriller, except for one thing.”

“What do you mean, William?” asked Jonathan crossly.

“In a thriller,” William explained, “there’s always a corpse and he can’t give evidence. But, here,” and he pointed his finger at his brother, “you might say we have the corpse with us. That’s the difference.”

“Let us go to the library,” said Jonathan.